The land and water costs of the “green energy” transition

The transition to renewable energy sources is expected to reduce anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions and the associated impacts on global climate but it entails an increased human pressure on land and water resources. Here we evaluate the associated shift in environmental costs from climate warming to increased human use of land and water. We evaluate the tradeoffs inherent to the different carbon, land, and water footprints of fossil vs renewable energy sources at local and global scales. While with the industrial revolution human reliance on fossil fuels has coupled economic growth to global CO2 emissions, it has greatly decoupled the energy system from land and water use. Conversely, the transition to renewable (or “green”) energy is now recoupling energy production to local land (and water) use.